Clearing Away the Rubble … with Black Hawks, Tanks, and Loads of Ammo

A domestic crisis would also justify the billions of dollars in military surplus the DOD has been gifting to local governments through its Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO). Chicago Channel 7’s I-Team has been investigating “weapons of war” that are “ending up in Chicago and the suburbs.” Law enforcement is being so broadly defined that M-16 rifles and a humvee went to a Catholic university, and an “arsenal of combat rifles” went to Brookfield zoo. What sense does it make to arm a zoo unless someone envisions a scenario where desperate, starving urbanites are forced to turn it into a hunting ground after grocery shelves run empty?

I’ve lived in this country my entire life and never heard of government agencies stockpiling millions of rounds of the hollow-point “training ammo” listed in its solicitations or shooting blanks from military aircraft over our neighborhoods and cities. Not until now. None of this makes sense if things are as peachy as the president claims, and I think these circumstances raise enough questions to warrant a congressional hearing. Questions like these would not be remiss:

Is the government preparing for the possible collapse of our economy and society, and why is the Obama administration continuing policies even the General Accounting Office says are unsustainable if that’s the case?

What is the added value of blanks to these urban warfare exercises? Are they being used to desensitize members of our military to firing on their fellow citizens if there’s domestic turmoil?

Why are DHS and other federal agencies seeking so much of the more expensive and lethal hollow-point bullets, which are not typically used at the firing range and are outlawed by the Geneva Convention for battlefield use?

Are bulk ammunition purchases and LESO’s redistribution of military hardware to local governments connected to any domestic scenarios being played out?

If the purpose of these exercises includes preparing for operations overseas, then why were Black Hawks recently firing over Miami but not Benghazi?

It amazes me that residents of areas where these exercises are taking place aren’t flooding their representatives with questions and complaints. Then again, city dwellers tend to be more liberal, and I don’t have the faith in this president and our policymakers in Washington that millions of people like Houston resident Glen DeWitt do. “If it’s to protect our kids, I’m for it,” DeWitt told a reporter interviewing him about the DOD drill at the school. “I think it’s cool,” a bystander in Worcester, Mass., said of helicopters “buzzing neighborhoods” and landing around the auditorium in Lincoln Square last August. “At least the empty buildings in Worcester are getting some use,” he told a reporter from the Telegram & Gazette.

Not all residents are happy, however, nor are the many people posting comments on websites and under YouTube videos of these drills. Alarmed Worcester resident Chad Julian left a message on the Telegram‘s Facebook page that ends with the question, “Don’t you think it would help put the public’s mind at ease to know that there was a reasonable explanation for all this hubbub especially since it was ONLY a training exercise?”

Many of us who can’t yet see through the “rubble of crisis” the president claims to have cleared away would like a reasonable explanation for the hubbub as well.